The Jack & Jill app is a new avenue for individuals and businesses to donate mobile phones or toner cartridges or to order cartridges from Jack & Jill and, in turn, help the charity’s recycling programme that raises funds for children who need nursing care. The free app is now available to download from the iTunes Store.
The children’s charity teamed up with the IT services firm Vantage Resources to develop and launch the app to the smartphone marketplace.
People who use this new Jack & Jill app as a way of donating to the charity will also be contributing to Jack & Jill’s recycling programme, which raises funds to provide home nursing care and respite for children in Ireland with brain damage and who have severe intellectual and physical developmental delays.
Jonathan Irwin, CEO and founder of Jack & Jill, says: “This new app gives Jack & Jill yet another avenue to the individuals and the businesses who want to help Jack & Jill while at the same time save money for their businesses. I want to thank the team at Vantage Resources for giving their time and developing this for free. It means a lot to us and to the 270 sick children and families that we represent today.”
The Jack & Jill Children’s Foundation was established in 1997 by Irwin and his wife Mary Ann O’Brien, based on their own experience caring for their son Jack at home.
The foundation has supported more than 1,300 families over the past 13 years, by providing home visits, practical advice, emotional support, information and guidance, bereavement support and funding for up to 62 hours of home nursing care per month for children up to the age of four.
The gift of time
Its families refer to the Jack & Jill support model as “The gift of time – time to do those normal things that others take from granted, like sleeping, shopping, spending time with the other siblings, with the peace of mind that their sick child is being well cared for.”
SOS campaign
Today the charity receives only 19pc of its funding from the State and it has launched an SOS (Save our Service) campaign to raise the additional €750,000 funding it requires to keep the service going into 2011 and beyond.
